THE MORE THE FIRST LADY TRIES TO EXPLAIN THINGS, THE MORE QUESTIONS SHE RAISES. HILLARY CLINTON JUST CANNOT SEEM TO SOUND VERY CONVINCING

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON CAME TO THE job of First Lady determined to be taken seriously. She got her wish. In these first weeks of the presidential-campaign year, Washington and the rest of America are taking her more seriously than ever, though not in the way she hoped. As she set across the U.S. this week to promote her book on children's issues, what some people were asking, perhaps unfairly, is whether her real gift might be for fiction.

The First Lady and the White House spent much of last week trying to neutralize skepticism about a number of her past statements,...